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Post subject: I finally fixed my 1998 Hotrod Deville!!!
Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2010 3:04 pm
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Two years ago a friend offered me to buy his Hotrod Deville 410 'cause he was tired of taking it to a amp tech who really never got it fixed... he wanted 200 $ for it!
I knew it had issues but I couldn´t resist it. If you can´t buy a new one 'cause your purse doesn´t allow you... you got to find other ways... so I bought it.

I had no tech skills but I thought it would be kind of fun trying to learn me something new.
I didn´t dare digging into the amp directlly so I started to train me by building guitar effect pedals... a lot of fuzzboxes and tubescreamers so far... so finally two weeks ago I decided it was time for the Deville... a bit nervous... but anxious to give it a try.

After cleaning up tube sockets, exchanging speaker cables to Hi-Fi ones, cleaning jacks and fixing about at least 20 cold solder joints caused by his bad amp tech... IT FINALLY SUNG TO ME this evening!

What a sound! I have been through so many strange distorted sound, frying bacon sounds... volume fluctuations so I nearly gave it up... glad I didn´t!

Now I have a close to mint condition US-made Hotrod Deville 410 from 1998 sounding as good as only Fender amp can!

:lol: / Sune


Last edited by Sune_A on Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Amp
Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2010 3:35 pm
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Awesome Sune_A! You are at the top of the Hot Rod food chain with the Deville. Sounds like you would make a pretty good tech yourself! If everyone touched up the solder joints in their amps when they first get them, it could prevent a lot of other problems from ever happening. Good job!
:D

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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2010 10:52 pm
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Sunne, I'm impressed with your approach and success. My amp work kind of started the same way. A curiosity and neccessity, to figure out how these things work. Art

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Post subject: Re: I finally fixed my 1998 Hotrod Deville!!!
Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 9:51 am
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Sune_A wrote:
Two years ago a friend offered me to buy his Hotrod Deville 410 'cause he was tired of taking it to a amp tech who really never got it fixed... he wanted 200 $ for it!
I knew it had issues but I couldn´t resist it. If you can´t buy a new one 'cause your purse doesn´t allow you... you got to find other ways... so I bought it.

I had no tech skills but I thought it would be kind of fun trying to learn me something new.
I didn´t dare digging into the amp directlly so I started to train me by building guitar effect pedals... a lot of fuzzboxes and tubescreamers so far... so finally two weeks ago I decided it was time for the Deville... a bit nervous... but anxious to give it a try.

After cleaning up tube sockets, exchanging speaker cables to Hi-Fi ones, cleaning jacks and fixing about at least 20 cold solder joints caused by his bad amp tech... IT FINALLY SUNG TO ME this evening!

What a sound! I have been through so many stange distorted sound, frying bacon sounds... volume fluctuations so I nearly gave it up... glad I didn´t!

Now I have a close to mint condition US-made Hotrod Deville 410 from 1998 sounding as good as only Fender amp can!

:lol: / Sune


Sune, Great job.
The HRD series amps are prone to cold solder joints without the help of a tech. Glad it worked out for you. :D

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Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 8:07 am
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Thanks everyone for your kind words!

It is still working so I must have done something right! :D

I really love this amp now, when it is working...
and 63supro, I have understood by reading on the web that it is very vulnerable for cold solder joints as it is a strong combo...

One of the preamp tubes were bad so I shifted it to a 5963 (mil spec 12A
U7) in the V3 position... and it gave me a better dist in the drive channel. I read it was ok, to use 12AU7 and 1AT7s instead of 12AX7 so I gave it a try... I liked the result. I am going to buy complete set tubes to see what sounds the best next payday... any recommendations?

My 14 year old son (I fixed it for him) would like to have more Marshall tone in the drive channel, I know it is almost blasphemy but I would do it for him... can I use some combination of tubes that will give my good headroom in the clean channel and more Marshall tone in the drive channel?... without using too much of the More Drive thingy, which I don´t really fancy.

And minch you´re right about having the pots on the top... pretty big designer mistake... And the mirrorlike plate behind it... you can´t see what the text says... and I having trouble remembering the EQ pots in what order they are place... Treble - Bass - Middle !!!? That seems pretty stupid to me... why didn´t stick to normal Bass - Middle - Treble ?

But I do love this Amp... I actually sat down in front of it and look at it... :oops:


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Post subject:
Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 8:18 am
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Sune, JJ's work well in these amps. Go to www.Eurotubes.com. They have complete retube kits for different purposes for the DeVille and Deluxe amps. They have a good bit of kits for high gain options. Just be sure to check the bias if you change the power tubes.

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Post subject:
Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 8:22 am
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The 12AU7 is a pretty low-mu tube for a phase inverter. You might give a 12AY7 a try. If that doesn't wake up the drive channel then swap it out for a 12AT7, which was Leo's choice for most long-tail phase inverter applications.

HTH

Arjay

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Post subject:
Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:08 am
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Sune_A wrote:
My 14 year old son (I fixed it for him) would like to have more Marshall tone in the drive channel,... can I use some combination of tubes that will give my good headroom in the clean channel and more Marshall tone in the drive channel?...


Hi Sune_A,

If you want a "Marshall tone" AND clean headroom, I don't think that you'll get what you want from any combination of output and preamp tubes. You can get preamp tubes with lower gain, as others have suggested, for a cleaner sound, but you'll also lose drive-channel gain. You can get output tubes like the Fender Groove tube GT-6L6 S blue-label output tubes (made by JJ, labeled by Fender), which will give you earlier breakup (distortion), but you'll lose clean channel headroom. But no matter which tubes that you put in your amp, it won't sound like a Marshall.

You can get close to a Marshall sound with your Deville 4x10 using a distortion pedal with the amp clean and loud. For metal, or heavy rock sound, many players like the amp to sound as clean as possible for more headroom, and use pedals for the distortion. I don't care for the drive-channel on the Deville or the Deluxe, so I use Red-label Groove Tubes (GT6L6S) for the most clean headroom, and a pedal into the amp for distortion. The combination of the red-label tubes and a distortion pedal might give you both sounds that you want, great, clean, high headroom sound and great distorted rock sound. I have my Deville and Deluxe both set up this way, and I feel that it's the best of both worlds.

As 63supro suggested, definitely have the bias checked for whichever brand of output tubes that you use. :)

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Post subject:
Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 8:17 am
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Congrats again on learning how to fix your own amp - that's great!

Agree that a pedal in front of your Deville will give you that Marshall/clean flexibility without making serious circuit compromises. I make my Bandmaster bark with a Barber Direct Drive and a Paul Cochrane Timmy pedal. To each his own - some folks may find the Boss DS1 gives them what you're looking for - it all depends on which Marshall you want to sound like; for me; that's Jimmy Page's live Marshall sound from The Song Remains the Same. I don't get close to it, but I like the sound I'm getting which is all my own.

Lots of mods on the web for these amps; you may want to down the road replace your input jacks with more solid ones as well as replace the volume pots with regular ones for better volume control.

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